


Templates

by NebulousMistress



Series: The Shadow Over Atlantis [3]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s03e14 Tao of Rodney, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6735796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ascension machine reset his DNA. What does that mean for a hybrid? Set during/after 'Tao of Rodney'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Templates

**Author's Note:**

> The second scene was lifted from the Gateworld.net transcript.

The body, barely living, was placed on the platform. The machine awoke.

_Scanning._

_Scanning._

_DNA baseline on file._

_Scanning subject._

_Subject contains 32,172 coding components. Excess introns detected. Regulatory sequence differences detected. Epigenetic changess detected. Gene expression differs from baseline. Mitochondrial DNA mutations detected. Correcting._

_Initiate rapid protein synthesis._

_Initiating._

_Confirmed._

The body on the platform was a mess. The grey and white matter of the cerebral cortex had crowded the cerebellum so deep into the pons that the hindbrain was no longer receiving proper signal. Myelin sheaths were degraded along the spinal cord, white matter shredding and tracts tearing.

That was the immediate danger. Repairs began here first, select neurons killed off and synapses severed. Neural stem cells went dormant, connections were broken, the brain shrank to fit back into its confined space. Pressure inside the skull reduced.

But the machine wasn't finished.

There were other differences the machine detected.

*****

McKay opened his eyes, blinking owlishly. He sat up and looked around.  
  
“Rodney?” Dr. Beckett asked.  
  
“It worked!” McKay exclaimed.  
  
“Did it?”  
  
Rodney scoffed. “Well, I’m alive, aren’t I?”  
  
“Sounds like him,” Sheppard pointed out.  
  
“Yes, yes,” McKay said. He looked around at the assembled everyone. “I can’t hear any of your thoughts.” He looked intently at Dr. Beckett, gesturing at him. “The telekinesis is gone.” He stood up. “I’m still smart, I think… Yes! Yes, I’m me! I’m my old self!”  
  
“Are ye certain?” Beckett asked, still worried.  
  
“Yeah, I’m alive! I feel great! I feel uh… um… hungry?”  
  
“He’s fine,” Sheppard said, his grin ruining the deadpanned tone of his voice.  
  
Dr. Beckett’s face burst into a delighted grin.

*****

Within hours of release Rodney was back in the infirmary. “So, um, Carson, I noticed a few… changes,” he said by way of explanation.  
  
“Changes?”  
  
“Yes, um, well, I had some things removed during my life, tonsils and the like and now they’re back and could we discuss this in private?!” Rodney demanded.  
  
“Right,” Beckett said, leading Rodney into his office. “Now then, what be these ‘changes’ ye spoke of?”  
  
“Well, as I said I think I have my tonsils back,” Rodney began. “At least I don’t remember ever seeing pink blobs in the back of my throat before. And damn it all my fingers are webbed again. But there’s something else that worries me the most. Well, um… Well, you see…”  
  
“Yer fingers are webbed?” Carson exclaimed. “May I see?”  
  
“What? No, there are more important things going on here than my creepy webbed hands!” Rodney made an effort to try and calm himself down; this wasn’t something he wanted circulating the rumor mills of Atlantis. “I noticed I’m different, you know, down… there.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I was circumcised, you idiot!” Rodney blurted. “And now I’m not and I have no idea if everything’s okay because it’s all different!”  
  
Carson nodded sagely. “I see.”  
  
“No, you don’t see, I still have my pants on.”  
  
“Yes, well, I can examine yer equipment later, first show me yer hands,” Beckett said, somehow sounding comforting and dismissive at the same time.  
  
“What? Oh, sure,” Rodney said before holding out his hands and splaying his fingers. A thin pale webbing spread between four fingers of each hand, unconnected to the thumb. Webbing reached up to the second knuckle, leaving the fingertips independent of the hand while giving the rest of the hand a paw-like appearance.

Carson reached out to touch, to explore with his fingers. The new flesh was supple, strong, seemed likely to limit dexterity somewhat. “Are ye goin’ to be wantin’ it removed?” Carson asked.  
  
Rodney nodded sheepishly. “I, I still don’t want people to know.”  
  
“Even after knowin’ how Radek reacted, yer still worried?”  
  
Rodney pulled his hands away. “Radek was different and you know it,” he said. “Radek used to work with someone… like me. He knows, he _knew_ what it all meant before I had to tell him. I can’t take the chance that anyone else would have that kind of knowledge. I don’t want them to know.”  
  
“I see,” Carson said.  
  
Rodney closed his eyes. He felt inundated with thoughts, though it was somewhat comforting to know that they were all his own. Memories of the past few days, of rejoicing in the knowledge, the power, the _understanding_ … The incomprehensible equations mocking him in his own handwriting, daring him to understand them but knowing that he couldn’t, not now, not ever. Except… Maybe not never, just not yet…  
  
“I can have surgery set up fer ye in a few hours,” Carson was saying.  
  
“Hmm? Oh. Yes, yes of course,” Rodney said. “I'll be in the lab.”

*****

A nightmare. An absolute nightmare.

The worst possible outcome.

Rodney flipped through his notes, scrawled on paper and tablets, screens and whiteboards, and had no idea what it meant. Heck, much of it wasn't even in English! It was these strange glyphs or drawings or something that looked like they had meaning but gave him a headache when he looked at them too hard. Maybe they were in Ancient? Or perhaps some ancestral memory brought about by the sudden evolution? Or maybe he was just doodling. That was the worst part, the fact that he had no way of knowing.

Oh, he remembered that they meant something, but he also remembered that this doodle here of a giant shark-type... thing... eating a donut life preserver also meant something. 'Something' wasn't good enough.

“Urrrrrgh...” He collapsed into his chair in front of an open laptop, hands trying to thread into his hair. Oh, right. Webbed fingers. Instead his hands felt like they were encasing his head in some sort of finny prison and nope, ending that thought right now. He tore his hands from his head, a few shed hairs flying. And was he going bald even faster?

“Hey! That's important,” he snapped. He had a hand raised to point at the scientist who was about to erase incomprehensible equations from a whiteboard. That hand couldn't close into a pointed finger, instead it splayed into a claw-like shape that might have been threatening if it wasn't so strange looking.

Rodney heard gasps around him. Oh Great Mother, they _saw..._

Rodney clenched his hands into fists and pulled them close to his chest, trying to hide them even as he turned around.

Shocked eyes stared at him, at this overtly visible sign that something was not right. Rodney saw all sorts of horrible things in those eyes, fear, disgust, even hatred. He couldn't hear their thoughts anymore to stave off the wild imaginings of what they might say, might do...

He did the only sane thing he could imagine. He ran.

He found himself in a dank corridor in an empty part of the city. The wet air smelled good on his tongue, in his throat, but didn't help his mind as it raced through panicked scenarios. They'd seen his hands, all of them, or enough of them anyway. Soon the whole city would know and then it would be all over. After all, how was he going to explain this?

A gasp of hysterical laughter escaped his throat as he slid down the wall to the floor. And to think, an hour before he'd been worried about his junk. Oh if only he could go back to that...

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Rodney heard it, held his breath hoping they'd go away, look elsewhere for him. That was why they were here, right? That had to be it, there was no other reason for them to be here.

Rodney's breath escaped in a gasp. Of course he wouldn't be that lucky. At least it was just Miko.

Dr. Kusanagi stepped forward, moving as though she approached a scared animal. She crouched down next to Rodney.

He tried to calm his breathing. She wasn't freaking out, though she was looking at him with far too much interest to be particularly safe. He tried to ignore it, instead focusing his gaze on a spot on the floor.

“I heard about your hands,” she said. “May I see them?”

Rodney kept his hands curled like paws even as he relaxed one arm, letting her see the clenched fingers and tense palm. He felt cold hands on his, tried not to jerk away as she splayed his fingers and traced the webbing between them.

“You didn't have this before,” she said.

“It--it must have been the machine,” Rodney said, lying badly.

“Then why hide them?” she asked.

“I... I don't want anyone to know.”

Her hands drifted down his arm, fingertips brushing over the pulse point of his wrists. He was terrified, that much was certain. The skin on his forearm was thick, almost scaling even as dried patches seemed ready to flake off. She didn't believe that's all there was to it. She took his other hand and found a similar pattern of webbing, found more crusting scale underneath peeling dry skin.

“Please, don't...” he pleaded.

She let his hands go. There was more to this than the ascension machine. This went deeper, she could _feel_ it. And he was terrified that someone might find out.

He curled his hands back to his chest, trying to hide them under his chin.

“Carson was looking for you,” she said.

Rodney's eyes shot up, lit up. Carson, the surgery, getting his hands back, yes! That was what he needed, to get his hands back! He nodded before getting up and nearly running down the corridor, back towards the main city.

Miko watched him run. His loping gait seemed just a little off, somehow. And those hands...

They couldn't have been the result of the machine. No, he was too afraid of them. What was it?

*****

Rodney stormed into the infirmary, not even caring that Sheppard was there. He slammed his webbed hands onto a table and opened his mouth to demand Carson fix it.

“Whoa, McKay, I thought they were exaggerating.”

Rodney glared daggers at Sheppard. Now was not the time for this.

“Did the machine do that?” John asked.

“What do you think?!” Rodney snapped. “Now can you fix this yet or not?”

Carson nodded and gestured toward a bed. Rodney hopped up on it even as Carson brought over a tray with needles, sterile scissors, and suture materials. “I'm going to ask ye again, Rodney,” Carson said, oddly solemn. “Are ye sure ye want this?”

Rodney fixed him with a glare, blinking slowly with third eyelids.

Sheppard didn't notice, was too busy mulling over the question. “Why wouldn't he want it done?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Rodney said. “Why wouldn't I want my hands back? I want the webbing gone, Carson. I want my hands back, I want the stares to stop, I don't need this again. Not here. I want things back the way they were.”

“It's yer call,” Carson allowed, though his reluctance was obvious. He picked up an alcohol swab and a syringe and got to work preparing for the procedure. “This won' take long,” he promised. “But stop me if ye need me to.”

Rodney took a deep breath before nodding. Soon his hands would be back to normal. Soon the stares would stop. Right?

*****

Rodney's hands itched.

Three days after the procedure his hands still itched like nothing else. It was worse now than the first time he'd cut the webbing from his hands; then he'd used a questionably clean kitchen knife on himself while biting down on a wooden spoon. At least this time he had stitches.

Maybe it was the gloves. He'd told Carson he was probably allergic to the lining of these things. Who knows what an allergic reaction would do to his manual dexterity?

Still, it was good to have most of his range of motion back. He wouldn't get it all back until the stitches were out but until then he was content with little things. Being able to hold a pencil, being able to gesture while he talked and not be stared at as much, even pointing fingers. And there was a great deal of gesturing and finger-pointing with the backlog of his proofs and theories to catalog and preserve in the hope that one day they would make sense.

But ugh he had to get the gloves off. He stripped them off and tossed them on the table, stretching and bending his fingers simply for the pleasure of being able to do so. The long lines of clear stitches that flanked angry red lines were only marginally less disturbing than the webbing but at least now he could work.

Now at least he could glare at any staring scientists, cowing them into productivity.

He didn't notice until later that Miko wasn't cowed, not until he was slumped over his workstation in the dark and empty lab.

She was still here, face illuminated by the glow of her laptop. Rodney watched her, her figure bright to his night-clear eyes. He looked away when she looked up at him, didn't want her seeing the predator's shine in his eyes. He waited until he could hear the sounds of work again before glancing back at her.

Miko kept up her pattern of occasional glancing as she had the entire day. She had waited for everyone else to leave the lab and now they were gone. And Rodney's eyes glowed bright green when he looked at her, green like a cat's eyes. She took a deep breath and stepped closer.

This wasn't just the ascension machine, this was something more. She wasn't sure what; she didn't think she wanted to know. But Rodney knew, he had to, he was too nervous not to, especially as he fixed her with those cat-green eyes that stared wide and scared.

“Why did you fix your hands?” she asked.

“What?” Rodney was scared, confused, searching her face through a late night blackness that left nothing but clarity for him.

“You fixed them,” she said. “But was it really a fix? Your hands are as much a part of you as your eyes, your arms, the rest of you.”

His eyes went wider somehow as she mentioned them. Her words terrified him even as she tried not to.

“You removed a part of yourself, Dr. McKay, we can all see that. I'm sorry you felt you had to do it.”

Rodney tore his eyes away from her, focusing on a post-it note stuck on a piece of Ancient tech. He could read it if his night vision wasn't just slightly too blurry. “Yes, well...” He didn't know what to say.

“You are who you are,” she continued. “You should not have to change that for the others. If only they knew that as well. If only you knew that.”

Cat-green eyes turned back to bore into hers. “It's not that simple,” he snapped, standing up. “And don't ask why, it just isn't. It never was, it never will be.” He stormed out, leaving her alone in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This was started back in 2009, completed now. Never published before.


End file.
